Compilation (2004)
By Aïda Ruilova
Dreams and nightmares often leave a vivid impression in our memory, but describing them can be very difficult. Although we know exactly what the feeling was, the plot is fuzzy, and the details fade into one another. Imagination supplements their daylight reconstruction. Such is the nature of Aïda Ruilova’s short films and videos. Most of Ruilova’s earlier videos are less than a minute long. Like haiku, they aren’t narrative, but they concisely illuminate a situation. Shots of lone young women or men gesturing obsessively or keening idiosyncratic sounds or words in corridors, basements, stairs, or cellars are broken down into short sequences of a second or less. The editing—cognizant of the teachings of structuralist cinema and earlier experimental filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein— employs jump cuts, repetition, and loops. As a result, the characters seem trapped in an evil spell. Although infused with irony, they are in distress, possessed by paranoia, tics, and erratic behavior. For their condition there is no epiphany. In the videos Let’s Go (2004), Uh Oh (2004), Um (2004), Ok (2005), and Alright (2005), each character mutters the work’s titular syllables. The shots are ta…
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